William Carey, Serampore, sent via Capt. Chapman of the Ganges, to J. Shepherd, Curator, Botanical Gardens, Liverpool, 27 October 1820.

My Dear Sir

         I only heard two days ago of the Ganges being about to sail, and hear she sails tomorrow. I have therefore hastily filled you a Box of Plants, as [marked out word] the enclosed list; I could not possibly get seeds ready; I therefore only enclose one species in a full box. It is a new Canna, from Nepola.

         Accept my best thanks for a parcel of Seeds which came without a letter, but undoubtedly from you.—My collection owes much to you.

         If you could, and would send me a quantity of seeds of shrubs &c in Peet earth, well rammed down in a box or Cask—about twice or thrice as much earth as seeds, you would do me a great favour. We have no Peet Earth in Bengal, and Ericas, Rhododendra, Azaleas, and a hundred species more perish for want of it. The earth would therefore be as great a treasure as the seeds. I have occasionally received a small quantity in which these plants thrive prodigiously which we cannot preserve at all in our common soil. I just hint at a few Genera which might be sent that way with great hope of success. Viz. Syringa, Circaea, Veronica, Pinguicula, Monarda, Roseovarius, Salvia, Ancistrum, Collinsonia, Globularia, Scabrosa, Galium, Bouvardia, Cormus, Alchemilla, Ilex, Myosotis, Lythospernum, Anchusa, Cynoglossum, Pulmanaria, Symphaticum, Onosma, Eclium, [illegible word], Funicula, Dodecatheon, Lysimachia, Azalea, Phlax, Polemonium, Campanula, Phytuma, Lobelia, Lonicera. I am very desirous of our two most common species, Caprifolium and Periclymanum. Cestrum, and Viola, I long to see the sweet violet again.—But a list of these wants will only tire you to look it over. I should however feel much gratified by receiving a box or Cask of seeds thus packed in earth, it should not be quite dry, nor very moist. Bulbs are also very desirable. We have not the Snow drop, Tulip, Hyacinth, Erythroniums, nor many other species of bulbs, particularly Haemanthus and Massonia, scarcely any Lilies, or Fritillaries.

         I am particularly desirous of obtaining succulent Plants, Cactus except the species in the Hortus Bengalensis, Aloe, Stapelia, and Euphorbia, will come well packed in Moss, and I should think Sempervirens, and Sedums might do so.

         But I must conclude having two or three more letters to write and it is now Nine Oclock at night.

                                             I am, My Dear Sir,

                                                               very truly yours

                                                                                 W Carey

Serampore.

27.th Oct.r 1820

M.r Roscoe mentions your having some fine Cannas, pray send me seeds, also Maranta & Thalia. 

         I can spell out the plants when they grow, if you kindly add a list of the seeds mixed with the earth. The box is marked S. I. or rather was intended to be so, for the carpenter cut the I. so as to be like T turned upside down. It is S. I. you will I hope find it. 

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 198-99(annotated version); also Eng. MS. 387, fol. 20c, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. William Roscoe (1753-1831) was a Liverpool Unitarian, literary scholar, art historian, botanist, and M.P. in 1806. "Hortus Bengalensis" is a reference to the Hortus Bengalensis: or Catalogue of Plants Growing in the Honourable East India Company’s Botanic Garden at Calcutta by William Roxburgh, which was printed by Carey at Serampore in 1814. Roxburgh had left the manuscript with Carey when he returned to England in 1813, along with his other important manuscript (also published by Carey at Serampore), Flora Indica (2 vols., 1820, 1824). See Keith Farrer, William Carey: Missionary and Botanist (Kew, Victoria, Australia: Carey Baptist Grammar School, 2005), 96-97.